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Secretary of the Mc 


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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
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io EVOLUTION (2 


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OF 


The Jail of McLean County 


ILLINOIS 


By 
Ezra M. Prince 


Secretary of the McLean County.Historical Society 


Cy 


Bloomington, Illinois 
Pantagraph Printing and Stationery Company 


1899 





WEEE Ww ty 


The Conference of Charities 


The c State of Minois | 





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EVOLUTION OF THE JAIL OF M’LEAN 
COUNTY. 


Believing a history of the jails of McLean County would be both 


interesting and profitable to the Conference of Charities and Correc- 


tion and allinterested in “prison reform,” the Secretary of the McLean 
County Historical Society has prepared the following sketch of the 
five jails of McLean County. 


THE FIRST JAIL—1832. 


McLean County was organized April 28, 1831, with a population 
of about 2,300 to 2,500. Atthe December term of that year the County 
Commissioners’ Court voted to erect a jail, and at the January term, 
1832, the contract for it was let to William Dimmitt for $331. It was 
situated on the north line of the Court House Square, midway be- 
tween Main and Center streets, facing south. It was 16 by 16 feet, two 
stories, one room below and one above; the upper room was used for 
those imprisoned for debt and minor offenses and the lower room for 
those accused or convicted of the more seriouscrimes. The building, 
walls, floors and ceilings were hewed oak logs; the roof was covered 
with split shingles four feet long. The floor logs of the upper room 
were also the ceiling of the lower room. They extended north and 
south across the building, four logs in the center of this floor extend- 
ing four feet beyond the south side of the building, making a plat- 
form 4 by 4 feet. From the southwest corner of the building stairs 
extended to this platform. At the head of the stairs, and opening 
into the upper room from the platform, was a thick, heavy, oak door 
with heavy hinges and’a big lock. This was the only door in the 
building, the only other outside opening was a window in the east end 
of each room about fifteen inches square, about five feet above the 
floor, made of frames with heavy iron bars up and down and cross- 


ways inserted in the frames which were spiked into the openings in 


the logs. -In the floor of the upper room was a trapdoor. When a 
prisoner was incarcerated in the lower room he was taken up the 
stairs into the upper room, the trapdoor opened, a ladder put down 
and the prisoner thrust down into the inner darkness of the dungeon, 
the ladder removed, the trapdoor closed and locked. There was a 
vault below the lower floor, a small hole cut in the log floor and a 
suitable seat connected with it. There was, however, no such con- 
venience in the upper room. At first there was no railing to the 


_ stairs,but at the January Term, 1836, the commissioners appointed Dr. 


Isaac Baker “to have the steps leading into the upper part of the 
jail and platform strongly bannistered or railed for greater safety.” 


The writer has examined the county commissioners’ record during 
the whole time this building was used as a jail, and find no supplies 
for the jail of any kind, except ‘‘dieting prisoners,” and ‘‘one quilt and 


_ two blankets, $7,” for which the sheriff presented a bill June 7, 1836. 


For three or four years it seems to have served its purpose well, so far 
as the records show. Prisoners were few and hardy, and men who had 


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slept in cabins of rough, unhewed logs did not seriously object to the 
lraughts that came through the chinks of hewed logs. July 4, 1836, 

as the first recorded ‘‘jail delivery.”’ One Dick Morrow had bought 
a lot of saddlery goods of Benjamin Haines, one of Bloomington’s mer- 


_, chants, made it up into saddles, sold them, and refused to pay Haines, 
f{ who sued him, and imprisoned him for non-payment of the execution. 


When the key was turned on Morrow, he told the sheriff he would be 
out to help him celebrate the 4th of July, then approaching, and early 


| Hine morning the people saw a rope, made out of his bed clothes, dang- 


ing from the upper window of the jail, the iron bars of which he had so 
pent as to admit of his crawling out of the window, and he was soon 
jnounted on his pony, that he irreverently named St. John the Bap- 
tist, inquiring for the sheriff, saying he wanted to show him a weak 
place in the jail, and entertaining the crowd with his buffoonery. Prob- 
ably other escapes followed, for September, 1837, J.R. & R. Fell 
were allowed $35.24 for iron and smith work on the jail, and Lewis 
{Bunn $54.40 for iron locks and sundry repairs on the jail, and Decem- 

er, 1837, J. R. & R. Fell were allowed $9.55 for smith work and jail 
irons, and Haines & Co. for log chain and two locks for the jail. 
The jail irons were probably handcuffs or ankle locks. 


The log chain was used as an additional fastening to the door. 
‘After it was locked it was fastened with the log chain and a heavy 
padlock. ‘The iron work in 1837 was probably strips of iron spiked 
to the logs constituting the lower floor, through which, it is prob- 
lable, prisoners had escaped. But it was evidently unsafe, for in De- 
‘cember, 1837, Henry Miller presented a bill for guarding the jail, and 
December 8, 1837, the commissioners find the jail was ‘‘unfit for use 
‘or repairs,”’ and after that sometimes prisoners were sent to the Taze- 
well county jail, and sometimes they were guarded in this jail. July 
'6, 18389, the commissioners entered into a contract with Dr. Isaac 
| Baker for a new jail. 


| 
{ ° 


THE SECOND JAIL—r184o. 


| Was situated on lot 1, block 35, Allin Gridley & Pricket’s addition 
to Bloomington, the southwest corner of Center and Market streets, 
which lot Asahel Gridley conveyed to the county commissioners and 
their successors in office July 16, 1839, in consideration of $25—at that 
time the population of the county was 6,565. ‘The contract for the 
‘building was dated July 6, 1839, with a supplementary contract De- 
-cember, 1839. It -was 34 feet east and west, by 14 north and south, 
and 16 feet from the brick foundation to the eaves. It consisted of 
two ‘‘buildings’”’ or rooms on the ground floor, each 14 feet square, 
with an entry between the rooms 6 feet wide. There was a brick 
foundation 12 inches thick, with a foundation of two thicknesses of 
_hewed timbers 12 inches square, the upper course of timbers being the 
floor of the ‘‘prison.” The walls and ceilings of the two lower 
rooms were hewed logs 1 foot square, the lower story 10 feet high in 
_the clear, and three rounds of timber above the floor of the second 
story. The logs of the first jail are said to have been used in the con- 
_ struction of the second. 


The top part was finished like a dwelling house with a window in 

each gable, this part of the building being used as the residence of 

the jailer. The lower rooms were connected together by the founda- 
tion timbers which extended across the entry. . 


EVOLUTION OF THE 


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‘ The only entrance to the building was through the “front” door 
(opening into the entry on the south. The entry ran through to the 
north wall of hewed logs which continued from one end of the build- 
ing to the other. This “front door” was a double door, the outer one 
a heavy oak door three inches thick with big lock and big brass nob 
to it, which, when the jail was vacant, the boys used as a ‘‘shinning 
mark” for their rifles. ‘The inner door was heavy bar iron crossed and 
riveted and fastened with another big lock. There was also a heavy 
door from the entry to each of the prison rooms; in each of these lat- 
ter doors was a grated window about fifteen inches square and oppo- 
site these erated windows were grated windows of the same size in 
che east and west ends of the building, the iron gratings being put in 
the logs as the building was built. The original ‘contract called for a 
pit in each room twelve feet deep, walled with brick, three feet in 
liameter and a seat suitable for the same, but this was abandoned and 
in lieu of it an ‘“‘outlet” “‘strongly guarded with iron bars” was made 
through the north wall of each room with a suitable seat to each “out- 
ad on the inside of said rooms. These outlets probably connected 
with vaults outside the building. The north, south and west sides of 
*‘dungeon” room, on the outside of the logs, were nailed ten feet high 
with eight-penny nails every two inches over the side space, be- 
fore the weatherboarding was put on; the front door and the doors 
from the entry to the dungeon room were also filled with nails. The 
“dungeon” room was undoubtedly the west room, for the contract re- 
quired the logs of this room to be nailed with eight-penny nails on 
the outside of the logs, ten feet high. The east room was doubtless. 
designed for ‘‘poor debtors” and those accused of minor offenses. The 
walls of the dungeon room were lined with one and a half inch plank 
put on with four-inch spikes in squares of three inches all over the 
walls, and both floors were floored on the timbers with plank one anda 
quarter inch thick, strongly nailed down with good joints. The build- 
ing was ‘‘enclosed” with dressed weatherboarding and painted red. 
In the entry was a ladder leading to the second story. There was also 
in the “entry” a large ‘‘Franklin” stove which was the only means 
of heating the lower rooms. - 


| This building was used as a jail until 1849 when the third jail, on 
the northwest corner of the Court House Square was ready for occu- 
pancy. The contract price for the building was $1,500. In June, 1851, 
the use of it was granted to the city of Bloomington for a calaboose. 

t was torn down in 1877 when the fourth jail was erected on that lot. 


THIRD JAIL—1848. 


August 31, 1848, the county contracted with William F. Flagg to 
build the third jail, which cost $2,216. It was onthe northwest corner 
of the Court House Square. It consisted of a two- -story brick building 20 
by 41 feet, facing west on Center street, the first story 9 feet in the clear, 
and the second 8, with anell one story on the east side of the north part 
of the main building, consisting of a kitchen 16 by 16 and a wood house 
8by 16, anda tight plank stockade 25 by 25 feet, 12 feet high, in the cor- 
ner, made by the main building and the ell. In the picture of this jail 
accompanying this sketch the ell and wood house are not seen, as it 


was thought best to take a picture which would show the front, the 


jail and stockade, or the prison part, rather than the residence part. 
In the center of the main building running east and west was an en- 
try 8 feet wide, with a door at each end, the east door opening into 
the stockade. On the north side of the entry were stairs leading to 
the second floor. On the south of the entry was the jail part of the 





EVOLUTION OF THE 








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FIFTH JAIL. 





JAIL OF McLHAN COUNTY. 9 





building, consisting of two rooms, the lower one for criminals-and the 
upper for poor debtors. Inside of the brick shell constituting the 
outer walls, on the lower floor was a room 15}4 by 12 feet in the clear, 
laid up with square timbers 12 by 12 inches, floor, sides and ceiling. The 
walls, floor, ceiling and door jambs were all lined with iron about 1-16 
of an inch thick, and all ceiled with oak plank 2 inches thick and 12 
inches wide, spiked on with 6-inch spikes, four to each log, through 
the sheet iron. There was a small grated window on the east, open- 
ing into the stockade. The poor debtors’ room was like the lower jail 
room, except it didnot have the iron casing between the logs and oak 
planking. The jail doors were of two thicknesses of 2-inch plank with 
the iron casing between the planks, with a diamond hole near the top” 
large enough to admit of food for prisoners, with an iron door to cover 
the same, with a padlock to fasten it. The hinges to the cell doors 
were of bar iron 3 inches wide and 1/4 inches thick, to reach across 
the door and screwed on from the outside with %-inch bolts and headed 
down on the inside and fastened witha big padlock. The water-closet 
was in the stockade. The windows, except the small grated windows 
of the prison rooms, had outside or ‘‘venetian” blinds. There were no 
windows on the west side of the prison rooms. The blinds appearing 
there were ‘“‘blind blinds,” there being the usual casings for windows, 
but no windows. At the head of the stairs was the jailer’s bed room. 
The jail rooms were both heated by grates. There was no furniture in 
either room except the straw bed and bedding and pail of water and 
dipper and probably a wooden chair. This jail gave way to the fourth 
jail in 1857, but was used for an office some ten years longer before it 
was torn down. The sheriff’s office remainedin this building until the 
court house was completed, in 1878, since which it has remained in 
that building. 


FOURTH JAIL 1857. 


The fourth jail, a brick building, was erected in 1857 on Lot 1 
Block 35, Allin Gridley and Pricket’s addition, the location of the 
second jail, which was torn down to make way for this one. The build- 
ing, somewhat altered, is still standing at the corner of Center and 
Market streets. It cost $138,150 and consisted of the sheriff’s resi- 
dence, 32 by 42, two stories, fronting east on Center street. The 
northwest room of the first floor was the jailer’s office, the room 
above it, the ‘‘poor debtors’ ” room, was used for women prisoners when 
there were any, which was seldom. The jail was a one-story brick 
building adjoining on tHe west the jailer’s office, 32 feet on Market 
street by 26 feet wide, north and south. In 1868 a thick layer of 
cement grout was placed under the jail floor to prevent prisoners 
escaping through the floor. On the north side were ventilating holes 
about six inches square, the air passing under the floor of the iron 
‘‘box”—but for some reason this ventilation wasa failure. There was a 
double door in the east end of the jail opening into the jailer’s office, 
a barred iron door next the jail and a wooden door next the office. 
Also a ‘‘peep hole” through which the jailer in his office could 
watch the prisoners, There was a window in the west end opening 
into the stockade. The interior arrangements of the jail are well 
described in a report of George Perrin Davis, Chairman of the Com- 
mittee on Public Buildings of the Board of Supervisors to that body, 
December 4, 1879, condemning its further use. ‘‘The jail is an iron 
box in which is a hall 30 feet long. 10 feet wide and 8 feet high, with 
five cells on each side 6 by 7 feet with bunks for two persons. In the west 
end is the only window which in cold weather must be closed. The ceil- 


10 EVOLUTION OF THE 





ing of the hall is a grating opening into a low garret in which are 
ventilators.” The top, bottom and sides of the cells were boiler iron 
cold in winter and hot insummer. The room was heated by a large 
stove. The only furniture besides the iron ‘‘bunks”’ or beds and straw 
mattresses were a dipper and an iron bench inthe hall. There was 
a water-closet in the northwest cell connecting with a sewer. At first 
this was supplied with water from a tank on the top of the jail which 
was filled from a well on the lot. There was also a lavatory in this 
cell connected with this tank. In 1876, Bloomington established its 
system of waterworks with which the jail closet was connected and 
the tank on the roof removed. 


When built this was considered a model jail as doubtless its pred- 


ecessors were considered when they were built. But the population — 


of the county increased rapidly from about 22,000 in 1857 when this jail 
was built to 28,772 in 1860, 53,988 in 1870 and 60,100 in 1880, and pari 
passu with the ‘crowth of the county the number of its criminals in- 
creased. So that a jail intended for only ten inmates at times had as 
many as forty. In this little room were herded the hardened crimi- 
nal, the boy who had only taken his first step in a downward career and 
sometimes the insane held for temporary detention. September 17, 
1868, the Committee on Public Buildings reported the jail unsafe and 
December 4, 1879, the Committee on Public Buildings reported the 
jail, “insufficient in capacity and in strength to safely hold the pris- 
oners,only seven cells available for prison use” and insanitary. The iron 
of which the ‘‘box” and cells were made had become rotten; there 
had been several escapes, in December, 1878, seven prisoners dig- 
ging their way out and escaping. Asa makeshift the northeast room 
of the first floor of the main building was lined with 2 by 4 oak and 
used as a cell room for the boys and minor criminals, but the building 
bad long outgrown its usefulness, being insanitary, unsafe, too small 


and ill arranged, and March 8, 1881, the contracts were made for the 


fifth and last in the series of the McLean County jails. 


FIFTH JAIL—1882. 


This is a large and imposing building of brick, with limestone 
trimmings, built in 1882, at a cost of about $72,000. It is situated on 
’ a lot fronting 100 feet on Madison street by 198 on Monroe street. It 
consists of the sheriff’s residence,.68 by 55 feet, and the main jail 
building in the rear, 61.6 by 59 feet; and in the southwest corner of 
the premises is a commodious brick stable. The accompanying sketch 
will give a general idea of the whole building. 


As to the residence part, without going into unnecessary details 


it is sufficient to say that the first floor, in addition to a boys’ prison, 
with four cells, and a jailer’s office and large rear hall, contains a 
large front hall,a reception room, sitting room, bed room, pantry and 
kitchen. On the second floor, in addition to a room for the temporary 
detention of the insane, a large rear hall, a women’s prison with four 
cells, and a hospital, are a front hall, four chambers, store room, bath 
room and closets; and in the attic are five chambers, hall and closets. 


The jail part, with which we are more particularly concerned, is 
in the rear of the main building. The cell room, inside, is 44.6 feet in 
length, east and west, 43.3 feet in width, 26 feet high. In the center 


is a stack of cells, three tiers in height, on a concrete foundation 9 © 


feet thick. The floor of the cell room is limestone, 8 inches thick, 


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JAIL OF McLEAN COUNTY. 11 


resting on concrete; the walls are lined with stone 8 inches thick, and 
the ceiling is of stone 8 inches thick, upon which, over the cell stack, 
are bars of chilled steel, 24 inches wide by three-fourths of an inch 
thick, kept in place by 3 ‘feet of solid masonry. The cells in the boys’, 
women’s and main prison are 5 by 8 feet, and 8 feet high, constructed 
of stone, a single stone for each floor, each side and each ceiling. The 
doors consist of 1i-inch rods, set in five cross-bars 3 by three- fourths of 
an inch thick, are locked separately, and each tier of six cells to- 
gether. In each cell are canvas hammock cots. Between the cell 
stack and the north and south walls are corridors 12 feet wide. The 
north and south halves of the cell room are separated by iron grated 
screen partition. There are two tiers of windows on each side of the 
jail, the lower 8 feet above the jail floor; these windows are double- 
barred, and afford ample light, and by opening them in the summer 
the cell room is quickly cooled and ventilated. Ventilation is also 
provided for the cell room, cells, and between the cells, by an efficient 
system of ventilation through the boiler stack or chimney. It is am- 
ply provided with bath-room, lavatory, water closet and drinking 
water accommodations. There is an observation and “peep hole” into 
the jail from the jailer’s office, and also from the back hall of the first 
floor and from the second floor, so that the cell room is at all times, 
day and night, under the immediate oversight of the jailer. 


The whole building is heated by steam and lighted by gas. The 
only entrance to the cell room is through the, jailer’s office to the rear 
hall, and through that to the prisoners’ ante-room, and from that to 
the cell room. A resolute sheriff could hold at bay a mob for a long 
time, and it is quite as difficult for a prisoner to escape through these 
tripple locked doors. This jail has been in the charge of Jacob W. 
Swain for the past sixteen years, during which time no person has 
escaped from the cell room. 


RECAPITULATION. 


The first jail was based on a single idea—the detention of the 
prisoner. His comfort did not enter into the consideration of the au- 
thorities. The second jail advanced a step beyond that; the weather- 
boarding kept out the blasts of winter and the Franklin fire-place in 
the entry tempered the wintry winds, and the*“out-let” arrangement 
must have been an improvement on the vault under the first jail and 
the stench that must have arisen from it. The third jail with its 
cheerful grates and outside closet was an immense improvement on 
its predecessors. 


The fourth was an improvement in the water-closet, lavatory, 
ventilation, bunk, women’s room, and later the separate room for 
boys. The fifth is in every respect—safety, cleanliness, heating, and 
ventilation, and adequate provision for the separate confinement of 
boys, women, insane, and the sick—an immense improvement upon 
all the rest. So far as the safe keeping of the prisoners and their 
comfort is concerned, nothing seems to be lacking. The next step in 
the evolution of the jail will be to provide suitable employment, 
manual labor, for the prisoners, for it is ever true that ‘‘Satan finds 
some mischief still for idle hands to do.” 


_ Playing cards, the prisoners’ chief bitty: tarts is not ennobling, 
as a permanent occupation. che primal curse, “in the sweat of thy 
brow shalt thou eat bread” was the greatest blessing that ever befell 
man, and it is unfair to deprive even the criminal classes of their full 


ted 
































EVOLUTION OF THE JAI 


a Tat 


12 
L come through 1 
cation, education of the intellect by which with their man 
training they can earn their living, and moral education 
which they will cease to desire to prey upon their fellow m 
end must we come before we shall find out what to do 
fective and criminal classes. (SASS ORS ee en 


« 


share of that blessing, and the’ final step will 





The writer has taken great pains through correspondence 
minute inquiry to obtain reliable information of our early jails, a 
we believe the above description may be accepted as accurate ; 
correct. Bi ain &! Sasi eile y 


ah “ 
* 


THANKS. 


For a full and accurate description of the first jail, the writer | 
indebted to Mr. Adam Guthrie and Mr. Sidney D. Baker. For a de 
scription of the second jail to the same gentlemen and Mr. Thomas J. 
Bunn. For that of the third to Mr. Joseph H. Moore, who was t 
last sheriff to occupy it, and to Mr. James Goodheart, who tore i 
down. For many details as to the fourth jail to Mr. Gustave Lange, 
Mr. James Goodheart and Mr. Joseph Ator, sheriffs at the time it y 
used asa jail. Also to Mr. Dwight E. Frink, assistant city edit 
the Bulletin, for a drawing of the first jail. To Mr. A. L. Pills 
and Mr. D. C. Chaffee, architects, for drawings of the second and third 
jails. To Mr. George H. Miller, architect, for a drawing of the fourth 
jail and loan of the plans of the fifth jail, and especially to the Pan 
tagraph Printing & Stationery Company for reproducing these pic-— 
tures and printing this pamphlet without charge. To allassisting in” 
its preparation the Historical Society returns its sincerest thanks. | 


EZRA M. PRINCE, 
Secretary of the McLean County Historical Society. 


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Bloomington, Ill., November 1, 1899. Sia 





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0112 050061313 


UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 





